“The current fashion of Silicon Valley startups has taken this to an unhealthy extreme – startups have a weekly growth goal before they really have any strong idea about what they want to build.”

Unfortunately, this is not a fashion reserved for Silicon Valley startups only. European early stage startups are also all about “growth”.

Growth hacking is becoming to early stage startups, what TV Shop magic diets and electric ab belts are to people looking for fast track to fitness and happiness, instead of dealing with the root causes of their problems.

The root cause of a problem for early startups often lies in a product, as Sam, too, points out.

So, instead of taking the fast track to failure, let’s recap what we already know about premature scaling and building successful companies:

Not long ago, Sam also published Startup Playbook, a #mustread consisting of the most generalizable parts of the Y Combinator advice, based on having to date funded 1 000+ companies, including few notable successstories. Reading it took me straight back to 2009, when I presented the “Top Ten Advice To Make Your Early Stage Startup Succeed” at the Geek Girl Meetup. The subtitle was fittingly: “It’s rarely the competition that kills your startup.”

In 2016, we now have, together with the learnings from Y Combinator, a strong ground to point out the common denominators how to successfully reach product/market fit and scale. In addition to luck and timing, of course. You will need both 🙂

In order to keep the Generation GH (Growth Hackers) from getting more unhealthy and extreme, I’ve included the best growth hacking advice available by Chamath Palihapitiya of Social Capital.

Don’t end up like Scarface. Don’t get high on your own supply. Need help? Pick My Brain!

Paula is Digital Product Advisor and Top 100 Women in Tech in Europe, focusing on Product, Go-to-market, and Internationalization strategies. Rated as one of the very best startup mentors in Europe, she has to date mentored over 150 digital technology companies on product, marketing and growth. Pick My Brain! is her fixed price service tailored to early stage startups, gender wage gap adjusted for female founders. ContactPaula for digital strategy work or book her as keynote speaker about #Startups #WomenInTech #GenderEquality #Entrepreneurship. Read more abouther work and connect @Twitter, @LinkedIn. “You never learn anything when you speak, only when you listen” – Roelof Botha / Douglas Leone, Sequoia Capital

Hi, I’m Paula Marttila

Paula is Digital Product Advisor and Top 100 Women in Tech in Europe, focusing on product, go-to-market, and internationalization strategies. Her strength is working with all stages of a product’s life cycle.

Pick My Brain! is her fixed price service specifically tailored to early stage startups, gender wage gap adjusted for female founders and co-founders.

Rated as one of the best startup mentors in Europe, Paula has to date mentored over 150 companies on product, marketing, and growth at Seedcamp and Startup Wise Guys startup accelerators. For the past decade she has been actively involved with several women in tech and entrepreneurship initiatives.

Her deep corporate experience ranges from pioneering digital media products and premium subscription services, hiring, sales negotiations, to carrying out direct assignments by the company board of directors. She holds B.S. in Business Economics in International Marketing, and Computer and Systems Sciences.

Paula is Finn full of Sisu, calls Stockholm her home, occasionally spotted in Berlin and other European hot spots. Contact her for your product, go-to-market, and internationalization strategy. Learn more about her work, connect on LinkedIn, Twitter or just Email.